Chris Selley: The best plan to improve transit in Toronto is the current one

As news arrived this week of the latest battle in the war of the Eglinton LRT — you didn’t think it was over, did you? — the focus was largely on dire warnings of “traffic chaos,” “massive disruptions,” or other scary-sounding situations if Metrolinx forges ahead with what TTC staff consider a wildly ambitious completion date of 2020.

“The Metrolinx schedule carries the risk of disproportionate community disruption,” staff warn in a report that was discussed Wednesday at the commission. Specifically: “If all of the stations are designed and constructed in the same timeframe, there will inevitably be major disruption for the length of the underground section on Eglinton.” Staff advise instead “stagger[ing] the construction and major disruptions on Eglinton,” with a view to an in-service date of 2022-2023.

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They also express concerns about the so-called “alternative finance and delivery” model being employed by Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario, which took over project implementation from the TTC last year.

‘Let’s make sure we’ve got something straight here: This thing might go to hell no matter how it is built’

This approach hasn’t been used to build transit projects in Ontario before, they note, and may entail awarding a huge contract to a single contractor who would be responsible for the entire project — which could in turn devalue public input and concerns.

These are all possibilities. But let’s make sure we’ve got something straight here: This thing might go to hell no matter how it is built. And in any case it will entail what people will consider massive disruption and chaos.

Construction of each underground station is estimated to take about three-to-four years of construction — longer at interchanges. In expressing misgivings at the Metrolinx approach, TTC staff note that the commission had previously guaranteed that “at least one lane of traffic will be maintained in each direction.” I am picturing the intersection of Bayview and Eglinton at rush hour, with one lane open in each direction. And it looks a frightful mess.

So, no matter what, people will sit in cars and buses and not move for many minutes on end, and they will seethe to themselves and to talk-radio hosts. No amount of community consultation will make it otherwise. It’s just the nature of urban public works.

Frankly, there is a certain logic to crippling Eglinton all at once — the quicker to get all that over with and have everyone riding shiny new LRVs.

But there is certainly no point raising expectations of serenity under any funding or construction model.

The state of the TTC’s project-management reputation after St. Clair may be dire enough on its own to justify giving the province’s novel approach a chance. (Mayor Rob Ford approves, according to his policy chief Mark Towhey.) Vancouver’s Canada Line was built using a similar arrangement, and all did not go 100% swimmingly — but there it is, whisking people from downtown to the airport, mocking us. What is important is that this thing get built. And in this city, absent utterly compelling evidence to the contrary, the best plan to improve public transit is the current one.

That said, the TTC makes sense when it suggests that if Metrolinx is to pursue this approach, then it should assume “all responsibility for planning, design, construction and community relations.”

In the not-inconceivable event that the Eglinton LRT project blows its budget and/or deadline, the TTC will absorb blame — fairly or unfairly. Officially, at least, if the province wants to own this project, then it should own it in public as well.